James Fox, UFOlogist, does some of the chasing on “Chasing UFOs,” a new docu-reality-whatever series debuting at 8 p.m. Friday (June 29) on the National Geographic Channel.

His background: Filmmaker, first-person UFO witness, true believer.

His compadres: Erin Ryder (who handles “tech and recon,” according to the network’s website) and Ben McGee, a geoscientist and the house skeptic.

Together they visit sighting sites -- some well-known, some less-so -- and do the forensic thing with whatever evidence and/or testimony is available to them.

“Anyone that comes forward with a new angle, I’m always open to,” Fox said during a recent phone interview. “My sole objective is, I want to bring as many credible witnesses to cases and as much evidence as I possibly can. Then you look at the scientific evidence, whatever we can put in a lab.

“It's an interesting balance that we’re trying to work out with the show. While maintaining credibility with good solid witnesses in cases, we want to it be fun and entertaining, with a sense of travel. That sort of thing.”

Fox said his interest in the subject was launched by a personal sighting at age 19.

“It was pretty intense, actually,” he said. “It was this warm thing, pulsating kind of. You almost had to squint looking out the window. It was right over the trees.”

After freaking him out, it went away.

“Then when I was around 24 or 25, I started to look into the matter,” he said. “I thought there seems to be a lot more to this than we’re being told. You scratch the surface and there's a lot more stuff going on behind it. I was fascinated by military witnesses. They're like nuts-and-bolts kind of people when they talk about these experiences. I started to gravitate toward military witnesses. I went to a few conferences and listened to a few people and I decided I was going to make a movie.”

He made three, all documentaries: “I Know What I Saw,” “Out of the Blue,” “UFOs: 50 years of Denial.” (He’s currently working on a new doc on a terrestrial topic, the BP oil spill.)

“It's funny. I’m the kind of person that once I sink my teeth into something, I don't let go,” he said. “This has been something that the more I learn about it, the more I realize how much I don't know.”

He knows that there’s got to be some official truth out there on the topic – known to government officials, buried away in document storage, real Mulder stuff – but he doubts it will ever be widely disseminated.

“I don't anticipate any kind of disclosure,” he said. “I don't see how they would benefit, the military or the government, (given) that there are structured craft of unknown origin whizzing around our universe with impunity, and they seem to have some interest in our nuclear capabilities. And they fly faster than our fastest jets. I don't see that happening.”

Which is why he keeps chasing.

“I would love nothing more than to have the definitive piece of evidence,” he said. “However, I don't even know if that would convince people. People who believe, believe. People who don’t won't ever, no matter what.”

So, what can viewers expect to see over the eight-episode arc as the team talks to eyewitnesses, examines photographic evidence and even tries to find their own evidence to present?

In "Chasing UFOs," the investigators visit several states to try to make credible sense of lights spotted in the skies, in cases involving numerous eyewitnesses and photographic evidence, always mindful that most UFO reports can be explained as misidentified conventional aircraft, planets and meteorological phenomena.

The series, which claims to use science to investigate reports of sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs), is the latest entry in a genre of unscripted TV that follows a formula that can be best described as: Easily frightened people searching in the dark for things that frighten them and getting frightened on camera.

A: I will say, in a couple instances, I was convinced that something happened. Was it necessarily aliens? No. But you can’t just wave these claims away. I believe there are questions that need to be explored before you can jump to the conclusion [that aliens haven’t visited Earth].

Q: Sounds like you’re being diplomatic ...

A: They gave me a nickname on the show: Dream Crusher.

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